Dennis the Menace (1993)

Taglines: He’s armed… He’s adorable… And he’s out of school for the entire summer.

It is May 28, 1976, the last day of school at Lee High School in the suburbs of Austin, Texas. The next year’s group of seniors are preparing for the annual hazing of incoming freshmen. Randall “Pink” Floyd (Jason London), the school’s star football player, is asked to sign a pledge promising not to take drugs during the summer or do anything that would, “jeopardize the goal of a championship season”. When classes end, the incoming freshman boys are hunted down by the seniors and paddled. The incoming freshman girls are also hazed; they are rounded up in the school parking lot by senior girls, covered in mustard, ketchup, flour and raw eggs, and forced to propose to senior boys.

Freshman Mitch Kramer (Wiley Wiggins) escapes the initial hazing with his best friend Carl Burnett (Esteban Powell), but is later cornered after a baseball game and violently paddled. Fred O’Bannion (Ben Affleck), a senior participating in the hazing tradition for a second year after failing to graduate, delights in punishing Mitch. Pink gives the injured Mitch a ride home and offers to take him cruising with friends that night.

Plans for the evening are ruined when Kevin Pickford’s (Shawn Andrews) parents discover he planned to host a keg party. Elsewhere, the intellectual trio of Cynthia Dunn (Marissa Ribisi), Tony Olson (Anthony Rapp) and Mike Newhouse (Adam Goldberg) decide to participate in the evening’s activities. Pink and his friend David Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey), a man in his early 20s who still socializes with high school students, pick up Mitch and head for the Emporium, a pool hall frequented by teenagers.

Dazed and Confused is a 1993 American coming-of-age comedy film written and directed by Richard Linklater. The film features a large ensemble cast of actors who would later become stars, including Matthew McConaughey, Jason London, Ben Affleck, Milla Jovovich, Cole Hauser, Parker Posey, Adam Goldberg, Joey Lauren Adams, Nicky Katt, and Rory Cochrane. The plot follows various groups of Texas teenagers during the last day of school in 1976.

The film grossed less than $8 million at the U.S. box office. In 2002, Quentin Tarantino listed it as the 10th best film of all time in a Sight and Sound poll. It ranked third on Entertainment Weekly magazine’s list of the 50 Best High School Movies.[5] The magazine also ranked it 10th on their “Funniest Movies of the Past 25 Years” list.

The title of the film is derived from the Led Zeppelin version of the song of the same name. Linklater approached the surviving members of Led Zeppelin for permission to use their song “Rock and Roll” in the film, but, while Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones agreed, Robert Plant refused.